A record number of Members of Parliament, including five House of Commons frontbenchers, took part in the London Marathon this year.

Eight MPs, led – spiritually, if not physically – by the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls – sweated, panted and shuffled their way through the gruelling 26 miles to raise money for charity.

Balls knocked more than 17 minutes from his 2013 time (5:14:13) when he finished in 4.57:40, in his third successive marathon, running for the charity Whizz-Kidz. khan

But the MP in pole position was Alun Cairns, the Conservative MP for Vale of Glamorgan, who clocked 3.34:08, knocking five minutes of his personal best. The Minister for children and families, Edward Timpson, came next in 3.42:24, just beating the shadow justice minister, Dan Jarvis, who came in at 3.45:08. Jarvis, MP for Barnsley Central, ran his fourth London marathon, his second as an MP. The 41-year-old ran with his 69-year-old father, Bernard, a veteran of 68 marathons, in memory of his wife Caroline, who died of bowel cancer in 2010.

Sadiq Khan, the shadow justice secretary, ran the marathon in 4.19:47, Andy Burnham, the shadow secretary of state for health, managed 4.26:19.

Graham Evans came in at 4.43:56 and Jason McCartney managed 4.57:35.

But the record for an MP, set by Conservative politician and journalist Matthew Parris, never looked in danger. His time of 2:32:57, set in 1985, will prove difficult to break: only one MP has since come within 20 minutes of this 29-year-old mark.